Delta Air Lines celebrates 100 years today, Sunday, March 2, 2025 and joins a select group of other airlines which are now part of the elite century club of continuously being in business.
Delta Air Lines Celebrates 100 Years Today.
Huff Daland Dusters, Incorporated was founded on Monday, March 2, 1925 in Macon — but only a few months later during the summer, the company moved from the city in central Georgia to Monroe in Louisiana.
The Huff-Daland Duster was the first true crop duster, which was designed to combat the infestation of boll weevils to cotton crops.
Collett Everman Woolman — who was the general manager of the company — led a group of local investors to acquire the assets of the company.
Delta Air Service was incorporated on Monday, December 3, 1928. Catherine FitzGerald suggested the idea of naming the airline after the Mississippi Delta region to Woolman, who became the first chief executive officer of what eventually became Delta Air Lines in 1945. The headquarters of the airline moved from Monroe to Atlanta in 1941.
Delta Air Lines joins the growing list of companies which have celebrated 100 years in business:
- Finnair
- Qantas Airways
- KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
- Hilton
- The Hertz Corporation
- The Boeing Company
- British Airways
- Commercial aviation itself
- Nathan’s Famous frankfurters
- Grand Central Terminal in New York
- The Canarsie Courier in Brooklyn
- The National Park Service of the United States…
…and even though it is not a company, let us not forget 100 years of the “Mile High Club”.
Final Boarding Call
Additional information pertaining to the history of Delta Air Lines over the past 100 years is found at this special Internet web site which commemorates the anniversary.
Over the years, I have been fortunate and thankful to have been a part of the history of Delta Air Lines — from the retirement of the first Boeing 747-400 airplane to the day the historic DC-7B airplane “that ushered Delta into the jet age” came home to Delta Air Lines to when I helped to cut the ribbon to the new Sky Club on Concourse D in Atlanta to co-organizing Delta Air Lines FlyerTalk events in 2009 and 2010 to when I attended the celebrations of Delta Air Lines emerging from bankruptcy in 2007. Many of the employees over the years have welcomed me in the Sky Clubs, aboard countless airplanes, in their customer service centers, and at their world headquarters. I plan to revisit my personal — and unique — history with Delta Air Lines in a future article.
In the meantime, thank you for many unforgettable memories over the years, Delta Air Lines — and congratulations for being in business over the past 100 years. May your next 100 years be even more successful.
All photographs ©2007, ©2009, and ©2014 by Brian Cohen.
